Lucifer's Nebula

by Phipps, C. T.

I actually was pleased to see Ida Claire had managed to survive the frame-up job I’d done to her. Despite the fact she’d used me and tried to turn me into a weapon against my sister—succeeded, really—I didn’t hate her for what she’d done. Instead, I just wanted to hurt her enough she couldn’t get involved in my life again. Obviously, that had failed.

  Fade’s eyes flashed at my words but Ida just chuckled. The old woman sat down in a chair and crossed her hands. “Oh, it took months to sort out what you and Judith did to my record, Cassius. I spent a good deal of it in a deep dark hole in the middle of a deeper dark hole on a space station in the middle of a hole in an asteroid next to a black hole. However, that actually worked out in the end, as it kept me out of the Night of Long Knives and Stalinist purges that followed every single failure of the Watchers’ leadership to stop the FSA’s forward momentum. After the director shot himself in the head, probably with some help, I ended up in the comfy chair.”

  “The comfy chair?” I asked.

  “What we call the intelligence committee’s head,” Ida said, smirking. “I’m now the Watcher General.”

  I had no idea who would give themselves that sort of title. It sounded ridiculous. Unlike Fire Count or Count-Colonel, of course. “Bully for you.”

  “A lot of people died who might not have if Ida had been in charge sooner,” Fade said, acting like I should feel guilty.

  “A lot of people would have died anyway,” I said, frowning. “Ida wasn’t going to stop the Insurgency and she helped bring it about.”

  “So did you,” Fade said. “Your doppelganger, at least.”

  “Children, behave,” Ida said, shaking her head. “I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to make you an offer.”

  “If it involves turning over Judith, no,” Isla said. “She’s part of our crew now.”

  “If it involves turning over Judith, yes,” William said. “Because Cognition A.I. scare the fuck out of me.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Isla shook her head. “Is everything out of your mouth contrary to basic decency?”

  Clarice reluctantly raised her hand. “I like Judith, too, but am on the ‘dismantle the evil computer god’ thing.”

  Isla stared in horror. “Clarice!”

  “Shogun,” Clarice referencing the planet where we picked up Judith. “My home world got invaded because of creating a Cognition A.I. Judith, specifically. They’re still fighting there. I wouldn’t mind if she would just give up all the extra powers she has and stuck herself in a bioroid but she can wreck much of the human race with her abilities. A person can’t maintain their humanity with that much power. I mean, she doesn’t even like Cassius anymore.”

  “I like Cassius fine,” Judith said. “Just not as his wife anymore.”

  That stung deeply even if I already knew the truth. “Judith’s abilities have saved us before. I remind you we would have all died in the prison Ida dumped us in if not for her.”

  “I would have gotten you out,” Ida said. “Probably. Anyway, I don’t want Judith back or shut down.”

  “You don’t?” Fade asked, sounding genuinely shocked. “Watcher General, you do realize these are private citizens with a weapon infinitely more powerful than a planet cracker. One that violates all interstellar treaties.”

  “Yep,” Ida said, casual as a woman on an evening stroll. “She’s also been doing the Watchers plenty of favors that keep her away from our servers.”

  Ida couldn’t have shocked me harder if she’d used a stun rod. “What?”

  “Ha-ha!” William said, aloud. “Now I support her being on the ship.”

  “What?” Clarice said, shooting him a withering gaze.

  “Well, before she was going to get us killed,” William said, reaching for a doughnut. “Now she’s like a living wall between us and the authorities.”

  “I like Judith,” Munin said under her breath. “I mean, if you’re inclined to religion then it’s nice to have as close to a goddess at your back as you can. Also, it’s cool to have a ship that actually talks back and I didn’t want to knock out Isla and scoop out her brain to attach to the engine.”

  Isla, sitting next to Munin, got up and changed seats.

  “I meant that figuratively!” Munin said. “Because you’re the only A.I. I know other than…never mind.”

  “How could you, Judith?” I asked, shaking my head. “We were supposed to stay out of this conflict.”

  “Which you can’t do flying around in the galaxy’s most well-armed piece of junk,” Ida said, speaking for her. “Not to mention with a Cognition A.I. Planets have been destroyed for trying to develop those.”

  “With good reason,” Fade said.

  “Yep,” Ida said, smiling. “Why only we can be trusted with them. Well, we and you since you’ve done a good job of keeping her out of the hands of—”

  “People like you?” I asked. “Apparently not.”

  Judith filled my brain chip with images of what she’d been doing for the past six months. Surveillance of various political figures, breaking into information drives, destroying files, and making predictions impossible for any human being. None of it was directly related to the war, but I had no doubt it had changed the course of thousands of lives.

  All underneath my nose.

  “We need you,” Ida said.

  “Obviously,” I said, shaking my head. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to meet with us. Though, honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t try to send a fleet to capture us.”

  Fade frowned.

  I felt the bridge of my nose. “Unless that was the Ravager.”

  Ida didn’t respond. “I was testing you to see if you were willing to do something that would assist the Free Systems Alliance. You failed. Except, then I find out you rigged all of the missiles to fail and were going to rip off the Consortium. You are a damn hard man to figure out. I can’t get a handle on your politics.”

  “You can’t get a handle on ‘leave us the hell alone?” Isla said.

  “A plague on both your houses,” Clarice snapped, sounding angrier than I’d heard her all year. “We’re the Union of Faith. Neutral in all conflicts.”

  “Even if it ends the war?” Ida asked.

  That stopped everyone from speaking.

  “Oh hell no,” William said, looking between us. “We are not getting involved with these people again.”

  “There’s always another war, Ida,” I said, closing my eyes. “But, God help me, I’m listening.”

  Ida frowned. “Your doppelganger is now the Regent and Supreme Commander of the Free Systems Alliance.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “How the hell did he get to be top raptor?” William asked, stunned. “I thought he was just a general.”

  Ida’s expression grew grave. “I don’t know because he’s not acting like we expected them to. You’re, as you say, politically uninterested to an aggressive agree. The fake Cassius is decidedly not. We thought he was just a political figurehead, but we received information that allowed us to target his enemies in the FSA’s leadership. We took it and eliminated Grand Admiral Malcolm Plantagenet and Minister of State Security Jensen. That propelled him to the top of the food chain as he’s taken over the regency for the puppet queen, Servilia Dumas. The fourteen year old named him her champion and all the other soldiers fell in suit.”

  “Who is in charge of the navy now?” I asked.

  “Your doppelganger seems to be actively directing all of the FSA’s military forces,” Ida repeated information I knew. “State Security is under the control of your brother, Thomas, and another Zoe Plantagenet bioroid is the head of their weapons division. It’s basically your family heading it up now, so you’re rather valuable.”

  “Except for the part where I hate my family and think they’re all insane,” I said, staring at them. “You also forced me to kill Zoe in order to save Judith.”

  A Zoe bioroid to save Judith the A.I. version of my wif
e. It certainly felt like killing my sister to save my wife.

  “Nobody forced you to do that but Zoe,” Ida said, shaking her head. “I thought I could trust your sister, that she wanted nothing more than peace. The real one escaped from Commonwealth custody months ago and is at your father’s side. She’s copied herself dozens of times since then to become a one-woman engineering corp.”

  “Is that why the FSA is kicking your ass?” Munin said, picking out raisins from her cranapple-raisin muffin.

  It was a deliberate dig since Munin, of all people here, had reason to hate the Commonwealth. Many of the labor caste had fought on the side of the Commonwealth, only to end up hunted down by their neighbors after the Republic of Crius was instituted. The Commonwealth had neglected to intervene in a “private matter” despite widespread outrage from many of its own soldiers. A small few had managed to find refuge in Commonwealth Space but, ironically, had mostly been turned down as ‘potential terrorists.’

  “Technology is the reason why the Commonwealth is kicking our ass,” Ida said, sighing. “There’s parties in the Community funding the FSA with advanced alien missiles, shields, proton cannons, and stealth systems. They’ve also managed to work out how a couple of Markers work.”

  My blood ran cold at the last. “Markers? Bullshit.”

  The Elder Races had left them scattered across the galaxy as a test for the Young Species. Basically, if you were stupid enough to use them, you deserved to be wiped out. Judith had been connected to one and determined much of the misery in the galaxy was due to the so-called nobility.

  “I didn’t say they knew how to use them well,” Ida said, staring at me. “It’s a bit like Aztecs finding a functional starship and using its hover function to pull carts, but they’ve brought down three fortress worlds without losing a single soldier. The weather, earthquakes, and even stars in the system turned against them. Natural disasters we’ve kept from the media but that killed millions and crippled the war effort. We think Zoe is continuing her obsession with the Elder Races’ technology and utilizing it against us.”

  “Then you’re doomed,” I said, simply. “Maybe we all are. The nobility has exterminated ninety-nine out of a hundred races. Maybe more.”

  Ida paused. “I agree.”

  Fade looked pained. “Watchers always agree with their general.”

  “I don’t understand.” I stared at them both. “What do you want from me?”

  The air in the room became oppressive and I realized this was a conversation point they’d been building to. It was something they didn’t want to admit and with Ida, that was a rare thing. While she was capable of lying to your face, she was never hesitant with the truth.

  Until now.

  Ida cleared her throat. “What do we want from you? Why do we need you? Why don’t we just take this ship apart and remove Judith? It’s the same reason I wanted you around from the moment I figured out who you were and what you represented. I’m always prepared for every eventuality and I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this one.”

  “Quit with the evasions,” I snapped.

  Ida pointed at me. “Cassius Mass, I’d like you to go to the planet Lucifer and begin negotiating our terms of surrender.”

  Chapter Nine

  I stared at her, my mouth hanging open, then burst out laughing. It was the first full-on belly laugh I’d had in years.

  “Laugh it up, Your Highness,” Ida said, keeping her gaze steady. “It’s not like anyone else is finding much humor in this.”

  Munin started giggling uncontrollably.

  “I stand corrected,” Ida said.

  Isla, Clarice, and William just exchanged worried glances.

  Fade looked despondent. I suspected he thought we’d take Ida’s suggestion with a bit more gravity. “At least you two are enjoying yourselves.”

  I tried to regain control of myself before finally choking out, “I’m sorry, but that is a ridiculous suggestion.”

  “Yes, surrender is a stupid move to make and will only cause greater misery in the long run,” Fade said.

  “We’re not calling it a surrender agreement, jackass,” Ida said, rolling her eyes. “We can call it a truce or a ceasefire. A negotiated settlement if you like. However, surrender’s what it amounts to in the long run.”

  I stopped chuckling, albeit not quite convinced they were serious. “I’m sorry but don’t you have ambassadors for this sort of thing?”

  Fade looked guilty. “It turns out that treating the FSA as a terrorist organization as long as we’ve done has made attempts to negotiate with their leadership…difficult. We’ve also had several attempts rebuffed due to using offers to try and assassinate FSA high-value targets.”

  William looked over at them. “I used to fight for the Commonwealth and I think that’s a shitty way of doing business.”

  “You forget, Bill, it’s only a war crime if the other guy does it,” Munin said, sitting up and getting a juice box from the preserver. “The Commonwealth holds itself to the highest standards of behavior when not violating every accord and law of war.”

  “Yep,” Ida said. “That’s a philosophy that’s bitten us in the ass more times than I can count. Thankfully, we’re still the good guys. Because we say so.”

  I covered my face, shaking my head. “Please go on. While I don’t believe this insanity for a second, I’ve not been this entertained in months.”

  “Are things really so bad for the Commonwealth now?” Clarice said, being the first to actually treat this as a serious suggestion. The Commonwealth, the most powerful government in the world, surrendering to terrorists? Ridiculous! Or was it?

  Ida’s expression remained impassive. “Empires are a hard thing to maintain as just about anyone who has ever bothered to look at human history will tell you. You’ve got to keep them constantly expanding and consolidate your rule simultaneously or they’re eventually going to collapse from within. That’s doubly so when you’re dealing with planetary empires across trillions of lightyears.”

  She was exaggerating the size a bit. Still, it seemed shockingly defeatist. “Believe me, I’ve fought for a conquest-hungry empire, I know what you’re saying. However, it was powerful enough to fight and defeat the archduchy at its strongest.”

  “It was a pyrrhic victory,” Fade said, disgusted. “The Commonwealth managed to crush the Archduchy of Crius but only through the expenditure of our soldiers’ lives like kindling on a fire. The breaking of the Belenus Accords about using mass drivers on civilians also cost us what little respect we had in many places. Much of the Commonwealth’s military had to be removed from the worlds it garrisoned to fight against the archduchy’s forces and that destabilized the positions there.”

  “I see,” I said, taking a breath. “Zoe mentioned something like that in between her insane ranting about the Elder Races. She said the Chel, transtellars, and even parties in the Commonwealth wanted to break down the government into a smaller state so the galactic economy could recover.”

  “She was right,” Ida said simply. “We’re hemorrhaging from all sides trying to keep our grip when what we really need is to bring everyone to the table with money. People need to want to be part of the Commonwealth and we can achieve that better with credits than bombs.”

  “Otherwise, you’ll just have to use endless numbers of slave soldiers to die in the place of your people,” Isla said, her voice icy.

  Fade looked at her. “You’re not the only one who finds bio-slavery monstrous.”

  “I’m the only one here whose experienced it,” Isla said.

  I was starting to believe Ida was sincere but I’d fallen for that trap before. “So what exactly are you offering to the FSA?”

  “Independence,” Ida said softly. “Sectors 1 through 6 will remain part of the Commonwealth with 7 being part of the reduced Crius republic—reformed into a limited monarchy until you can get your head on straight that nobility is a stupid idea. 8 will remain in Union of Faith’s control, 9 in the
Transtellar Coalition’s hands, 10 for the Chel, and 11-13 for the border planets. Easy peasy.”

  “That will please no one and infuriate others,” I said.

  “The mark of a good compromise,” Ida said, softly. “Obviously, the actual negotiations will take months if not years. It’s a huge Treaty of Versailles-style bit of business. Or, if you don’t know your Earth history, like the Sol Federation’s dissolution.”

  It was, all in all, not a bad compromise. The Commonwealth was still a fairly popular government across the Spiral with the inner sectors benefiting from its vast wealth and largesse. If not for the fact they were constantly taxed to the breaking point and subject to conscription, many worlds of the aforementioned ones would probably want to join voluntarily. They were things that would be avoided if the Commonwealth didn’t have to fund its massive war machine to conquer and garrison new worlds.

  However, there was no way they’d arrived at this bit of sense on their own.

  “Judith,” I said, ignoring her earlier betrayal. “What’s the real reason they’re doing this?”

  “Goddammit,” Ida muttered.

  Fade grimaced.

  Judith didn’t disappoint. “Six speakers in the Community High Assembly have begun gathering votes for a discussion of the so-called Human Issue. The central argument being whether or not it would be best to dispatched their Peacekeeper fleets and armies to force an end to mankind’s self-destructive conflicts. On grounds of crimes being conducted against sapience and basic decency.”

  “Translate to spacer for me, Judy?” William asked.

  “The Community is going to conquer us if we don’t end our war now,” I said, summing it up. “Apparently, we must have something the aliens want.”

  Ida growled, surprising me. “Slimy, tentacled, and horned bastards. For decades, they’ve been encouraging us to grow up our technology and infrastructure with the carrot of joining the greater galactic community. The whole time they were just waiting for us to have something worth stealing.”

  I chuckled. “Perhaps that’s a sign everyone’s human after all.”

  “I find that remark…insulting,” Judith said. “Though I suspect you won’t get the joke.”